Devigner – my new industry term

So with the help of my witty husband and a first-time-in-months-night-out-without-the-kids (and some ritas), I have a new industry term for people like me… devigner.

A Devigner is someone like those of us who are pixel pushers at heart, yet can get navigate their way around a .NET app without weeing in their pants. We can bang out CSS and pretty graphics and turn around and fix the UI in C# code. We can do you up a fine front end, but actually understand the backend. We don’t hand over a mockup from Photoshop with a post-it that says Good Luck! We can actually slice and dice and code our own designs and don’t use those silly WYSIWYG’s to do it either. We can do HTML and CSS in our sleep, read a C# or VB file and don’t go running and screaming away from XML.

Yet we get glassy-eyed if you get too technical on us and we get a lot more excited over the newest version of Photoshop than we do Visual Studio. We are in an odd limbo where we don’t belong to either world. It has been years since I gave a damn about the ADDYs or got giddy over a new font.

There is a downside as well. Usually we are classified as “designers”. Guess what, designers don’t get a whole lot of respect. We are like the hairdressers of the development world. We are there to just make things pretty and useable and no one cares if we are smart to boot. The title designer just doesn’t get you heard like software architect or senior developer. I am not bitter, just reminiscing over past experiences. It doesn’t help that I am a chick in a man’s industry either.

So instead of brooding over this weird indeterminate state I am in, I decided to make up a new industry term! I mean, can’t you see it now? Hi my name is Heather and I am a Senior Devigner (ohhhs and ahhhs ensue). Snicker.

Cheers everyone, and give props to your resident devigner (if you are lucky enough to have one 😛 )

Oh here were our other word inventions:

Desveloper (didn’t have the same sexy zing)
Designoper (too Jurassic Park)
Developing Designer (too right out of school)
Designing Developer (yeah like a developer can design- heehee)

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8 thoughts on “Devigner – my new industry term”

Great! I have found my purpose in life and the word that describes exactly what I do every day! It’s so confussing not knowing where you belong and I am very pleased that someone has found a word for it:) And just thinking about the usual question I get which is “What do you do?”, now I can say that I am a divigner… and it sounds soooo DEVINE!!!thanks!!!

Hi, I’m a Japanese “transveloper” (translator and developer). I recently run into the word “devigner” and got here while searching for the origin of the word. I didn’t expect to be able to find the very person who had coined the word. Now the word “devigner” is spreading in Japan as well.anyway, thanksTaro

Great term! The only thing that is unfortunate about it (as I point out in a recent post exploring what’s in a name?) if you use it in conversation in a loud networking environment, most people will probably assume you said Designer.But, as someone who is often accused of being a creator of words I salute your attempt. Well played!

I’m so behind being a Devigner – however in the work circles I run into just saying the name Heather Solomon brings about oohhhhs and aaahhhs 🙂 Look forward to meeting you at the branding class in Vegas!Rebecca Warrinerfellow Houston, Texan currently living in NC

Wow! I couldn’t have said it better myself! Sounds like you and I have similar backgrounds and experiences (designers get NO respect – in fact, I despise the term designer!).Devigner is a great way to capture the meaning of where we fit in this crazy world of application/web/system development.Kudos Heather! And, thanks for the valuable info you have provided me and others with SharePoint devign!